i want to read more maya angelou, and remember more fleeting moments.

like when i walked into my home yesterday, having not seen my parents for days. i give a begrudging wave to my father, who sits on the couch in the living. then as i slink away towards my room, i hear him shout out my name, and call for me to go see him. he has never been one to have a conversation through walls and with raised in voices. obediently, i turn towards the living room, weary of the fight that is about to begin - for whatever reason. i am still looking down, not out of fear, but out of emotional awkwardness, and i hear him stare at my new dress, and say, "you. look. beautiful." i feel myself raise, involuntarily, slightly on my toes, twist the curve of my skirt a little, rub at my eyes and say, "thaaaaaaank youuuuu."

i just don't know what i'm supposed to be, you know

it has NOTHING to do with anything, but phony-ness, GUYS. GUYS. like whatever you like, but god fucking dammit, people, MEAN to ascribe to your feelings.

and it also has EVERYTHING to do with my lack of confidence that i can't shrug off other people's insecurities, and its effect on my own existence. lindsay summed it up pretty accurately the other day. she said it's because people don't understand us. and our intensity is more than flawed, guys, but we feel, and we express how we feel, and we are analytic about everything, but this confuses those who repress, and turn a blind eye, and so they tear us down with terms like, "crazy" and "over-emotional"

my own friends have their own term for it. they call me, "stroggy."

go listen to fiona apple and kanye west.

my boyfriends just chillin and shit

Then began the Fussing.

I was sitting on the terrase of my well-frequented coffee shop, and I pulled my bare summer knees up to my chest, on the wooden bench, waiting for an older friend to arrive. I met X working at an elegant-friendly clothing boutique.  I remember she had walked in to my second shift, eating nuts out of a container.  She charmed me immediately, with a sarcastic comment about nuts being reasonable, for dinner, right?  No, affordable, was the term she was looking for.  In that first encounter, we filled out the oral forms that presuppose any conversation with someone you just meet.  What do you study, how old are you, what do you want to do, (always followed by a, “cool!” because at a certain bitter, 20-30 year old point, anybody who wants to be anything is cool.) 

She had graduated from university with a BA in English literature, and then, “I took some time off,” she said. 

“Ugh, what, to travel?” I responded.

She was dumbfounded for a second, then her nose crinkled, and her face broke into a grin. 

To my right of the terrasse, sat two white girls.  A short, built, brown boy lay reading on the bench across from both of us.  I saw him eye the girls – one of them was reading a short novel.  He called to them, “that’s an amazing book!” This sparked a conversation.  The girls seemed to enjoy the attention.  He was originally from Bangladesh, he said.  Dhaka.  But had spent the last portion of his life here.  They discussed literature for a novel, analytically so.  And then to my delight they went through the generic Social Greeting-Form, and filled out each other’s BA Majors and aspirations.  And in their discussion of plots, and emotional depth, she shared that she was studying in the business department, and he was an engineer graduate. 

I saw X turn a corner.  She was babysitting that day.  She pushed the stroller of little, large-for-a-two-year old Y, onto the terrase, and took a seat next to me.  She was wearing a classic black dress, with a boat neck cut, and her full hair was down.  She took a seat, crossed her legs, and I started to play peek-a-boo with Y.  His words fumbled, like his steps – as though they would fall over any second.  

“Boat!  I wanna bo!”

“A Boat!  You want a boat?  Me too!”

“Yah”

I nibbled at his belly.  He giggled.

“You’re eating my tummy!”

Children are literal about our games, and then we are scared of our impact on them. 

“So, how are you?” X asked. 

“I should be writing right now.”

“Yep.”

“But.”

“Yep.”

I looked down at Y.  I observed his shirt.  It had a Batman symbol. 

“What is that Y?  Is that Batman?!”

“Nanananananananananana!”

X was eight years older me, and served as a future self-assuring voice.  All pathetic fumbles, and collapses I made in my twenties had occurred in her past, and lay evident in my very existence, as events that only occurred with the purpose of repeating again.  The silver lining in her presence and assuring smile, was that she was living, thirty-year old proof, that contrary to my beliefs, you did in fact live to tell the tale of your twenty-year old griefs. 

So I told her how I was, clumsily and all.  I was twenty-two, that’s how I was.  She closed her eyes, and nodded.  Yes, this said. 

This is what I do, after all.  I get through a demanding, and exhausting shift at my retail-based job, punch-out, and then sit right here, sipping expensive espresso, thinking about how pointless my (not, just generally, but my particular) existence was.  I spent time, and analytic effort, into this activity.  I put work into complaining about my potential and it’s lack of fulfillment.  What I could be, what I ought to be, what I want to be.  This is what Adult-Babies do.  They nap, and cry, and whine until someone feeds them.  But with curse words, and the potential to get naked with other Adult-Babies.

“I dun am booldoze!” Y shouted.

“You don’t have a bulldozer?!” I tried.

Y looked at me as though what I had said made little to no sense, threw his hands up in the air, like Woody Allen does when he’s emphasizing a point of incredulity and said, “I don’t HAVE a bulldozer!” He stretched his arms and legs out, expressing weary in his portable prison.

“Oh no, he’s fussing.  Maybe he wants a snack,” X said.  She headed into the café and came out with a chocolatine.  She sat back down, reached into the brown paper bag to grab at the croissant, and then hesitated.  “Wait,” she said.  “Do you think there’s nuts in this?” she asked.

“Uuuuuuh.” 

Quickly, she hid the brown paper bag, before the child could complain about losing something he almost had.

“So, go write,” she said.

“Right.”

“But.”

I looked over.  I noticed the brown boy from Dhaka had disappeared.

I grumbled in frustration.

“I know,” she said.

“Why can’t…” I trailed off.

She sat patiently listening.

Fourty minutes later, X left to return to the child to its rightful owners. 

Fourty-five minutes later, I sat where the late afternoon had started, with a furrowed brow, nibbling at a chocolatine.  

A Poem About Trying to Talk to Strangers About Stuff

First I should describe the décor

And the posters labeled with various forms of ambition, on top of mountaintops

That

Filled the walls

I made no eye contact

Once

Twice

When I did, I felt like a fraud, because I knew I was looking at her with a complete sense of assurance

This is me

These are my feelings

But I’m here because I don’t feel so assured

But this is me

These are my feelings

Her sandals were beige suede, with silver studs

A purple cardigan draped over her chair

And as she asked me what I wanted to work on

I said I don’t know

And stared at her bookshelf

“Know thyself”

it said.